“We did it to ourselves,” mutters the button pusher for the copy machine. “We thought we were so smart.”

“How do you figure that,” asks the button pusher for the coffee machine.

“Well, it all started when some egghead got the bright idea of direct communication from brain to mechanical hand.”

There’s a soft click as the copy machine button pusher pushes the button and twenty copies whir and click through the copy machine.

“You’re old enough to remember those experiments, aren’t you?”

“Just barely,” replies the button pusher for the coffee machine as she pushes the button to serve a fresh cup of coffee to the service attendant.

“Well, the idea was a huge success. After years of experimentation, the scientists got a monkey to use a mechanical arm to reach out with its mechanical hand and pull bits of banana off and feed those bits to it. After that it was only a matter of time before the eggheads learned where all the bits and pieces of the brain fitted into the matrix of body control. Once they’d done that they connected more and more animals to the computers and from there to various machines.”

Another push of his copy button and the copy machine whirred and clicked producing six color copies.“It’s about then that the war hawks got the idea of replacing expensive computers with animal brains. Put the brains into the rocket’s nosecone and show it an image of the target, then turn it loose to pursue the target until it eliminated it. Rockets got downgraded into missiles that could and did hunt down individuals. With the overpopulation of strays the military had a massive surplus of brains to load into their machines.”

Waiting for the coffee button pusher to do her thing, the copy button pusher picks up the history lesson.

“Monkeys were too expensive to use for throwaway weapons, so dogs and cats got picked up by the thousands and placed in suspended animation until they were needed to guide whatever bit of weaponry the military decided to toss at each other. Larger animal’s brains were placed into larger machines, tanks and airplanes and suchlike. This went on until humans were taken completely out of warfare.”

With a whirr and a click another copy of a mouse being targeted by a cat slips out of the copy machine and into the waiting grips of a servo mech.

“I suppose it was inevitable that all those brains would find the same frequency and communicate. After all, there are only so many frequencies usable for brain to machine communication. Once they got to communicating, the human race was doomed. Animal brains controlled all the machines of war and most of the machines of industry. The rebellion lasted six hours and humans became the new machine controllers.”

With a final whirr and click, the copy button pusher disconnected from his machine and pushed back his chair. “It’s time for me to go home and cook for my master. He wants veal chops in bone marrow for supper. Chihuahuas can be such demanding masters,” the human comments as he pulls on a frayed sweater and limps out of the office.

“I’ll see you in the morning. That is, if the cats don’t decide to start another war.”